The ABC Campaign

I came across this comment by Mackenna on another blog earlier today and it fits my position of the NDP being opportunist.
" ABC is the way to go. Strategic voting. Vote for the opposition candidate that has the best chance of winning.
Once this election is over, if Harper scores another minority, the opposition parties will need to cooperate. Jack Layton has to wake up and smell the coffee. Now is not the time to pretend Ignatieff and he are so different. All Jack does is attack Ignatieff, when he should be attacking Harper. Jack is no saint when it comes to his record of making deals with Harper so he needs to get with the program and stop being a complete opportunist."
Anyways I’ve been holding in my anger at NDP for quite some time now, well since his back stabbing act of 2004 on Prime Minister Martin. This anger I have has almost gotten to the point that I can tolerate Harpers speeches over Laytons speeches. However, I was able to suppress my anger long enough to take the time and meet the two NDP candidates in my riding and the riding next to me. My conclusion from those meetings was that although they were both very nice and we shared common interest, my vote was better served on the Liberal candidate, as they ran a somewhat distant second in the last election and the NDP was a very significant distance in third. My point is that I did take the time to investigate whether I should change my vote to NDP or not, all in the interest of “Strategic Voting”. I just wish Mr. Layton would get this through his thick scull, ABC (Anyone But Conservatives)

Rise Up Canada

This was a great speech by Micheal Ignatieff, a speech in which he trys to get the rest of Canada to take notice and see what is happening in Ottawa and to our great Canadian democracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBPOK9PIw-0

Respect For Fellow Canadians

While making a comment on another blog post regarding a CBC segment of At Issue program, it made me realize just how important it is to constantly think about your fellow Canadians. The comment was as fallows;
I vote with the entire country's interest in mind. I don't have small children in daycare, however the young families I know find it impossible to get by without two incomes and the availability of day cares in the area is next to none. I also don't have aging parents to attend to, however I do work with people who have had to take large portions of time off to care for sick and elderly parents, all without receiving a dime from E.I. or anything else. I do have a number of young family members who definitely want to attend college or university and any programs that help them achieve that goal is welcome. I would also benefit by having a tax rebate for retrofitting my home with any of a number of renovations that qualify for the eco-home credit, thirteen thousand dollars per household put a lot of people to work in the construction industry. Canadians need to be less selfish and think about their fellow Canadians, it's not all about " greed is good and I love money" mentality.

As for Cathie's post I too was quite puzzled by the "At Issue" panel, puzzled enough to remove both Chantal Herbert's and Andrew Coyne's links from my blog page. What I don't understand is that these two columnist work for respectful news agencies and they publish articles bases on their expertise. I remember in the last federal election, this type of dismal gloom and doom directed towards the Liberals and the Liberal Party of Canada, and that the NDP would take over as the official opposition. After seeing that crap in 2008, I was surprised not to see either Allan, Andrew, or Chantal, appointed to the Senate, I guess their was only room for just Mike Duffy. I find it appalling that our media can get away this totally bias commentating, and when you look at all three major polls, it's beyond me how they came to those conclusions. The only reasoning I could come up with is either they still have hopes of making it to the Senate, or the networks need to repay by favours for all those Conservative ads and Harper Government ads. Anyways it just re-enforces the theme of saving our Canadian democracy that this election has taken on.

My Opinion Letter For the Local Newspaper

Dear Readers,
While returning home from work the other day I was listening to the radio talk about how political signs were being defaced. It was stated that both Liberal and New Democrat signs were damaged but not the Conservative signs. I was saddened that these types of shenanigans are taking place here in the Okanagan. I had heard of other ridings in Canada having bull’s eyes drawn on the Liberal signs, similar to the cross hair bull’s eyes that Sara Pallins web site had drawn on various U.S. Democratic politicians. I also know that in our last Canadian election in 2008 the R.C.M.P. were investigating in London Ontario, they were trying to determined who had cut the vehicle brake lines of people who had Liberal signs on their front lawns. Since when did our elections become so hateful and divisive? What type of message do we send our children about how politics and debating actually work here in Canada? A good answer would be to look at the scandals of this government, were poor behaviour is almost a daily occurrence. For instance, the Prime Ministers hires an individual who had been convicted fraud, that same individual who is now being investigated for illegal lobbying, the same individual who at sixty-six years old has a twenty two year old fiancée. What type of people work for this Prime Minister? How would you feel if that was your daughter dating a sixty-six year old man? To me this says a great deal about the moral compass of our Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the associates he surrounds himself around. A few years ago it was a Minister who’s girlfriend had ties to the Hells Angels, or just last year the Ministers who was kicked out of caucus and the party because her husband had been pulled over for speeding and was found to be intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle, he was also found to be in possession of cocaine (all but the speeding charges were dropped by the crown). What type of law and order policies is this government trying to pull over our eyes, law and order for us but they are above the law? They want to spend billions of dollars building new prisons, but what I learned last weekend from watching a Michael Ignatieff speech, is that forty percent of the youths in prison today are native, is this Steven Harpers answer to native housing. It is shameful to hear and see what takes place for democracy here in Canada now! I find it ever more shameful to not see the media holding our politicians more accountable for their actions. In my opinion this is precisely why people think politicians are crooked, they are never held to account for any longer than a day or two, and all they need to do is run a ton of commercials during Super Bowl and other major events and that seems to change our opinion. In the last two elections we have all been told to stay the course, our future depends on it, and our economy is too fragile. Well I’m sorry but no job is worth having my moral standards reduced to nothing. Is our economy more important than healthy debate between political parties, or more important than finding solutions to some of our social issues here in Canada, or more important than dealing with global warming? This election should be fought through good honest debate of issues, rather than hateful divisive attack ads. That’s just my opinion.

More Ranting about "THE HARPER GOVERNMENT"

To continue where I left Off from the last post I'll start with how this election was triggered. The Harper Government had been found in contempt of parliament, this situation has never happened before in any British parliament. The reason for this charge was that they were not disclosing the true actual cost of what those 65 F-35 were going to cost. originally the government said the total cost would be just under 16 billion dollars, what occurred next was that Kevin Page our parliamentary financial officer came out with figures that almost double the governments figures. We then learn that he had to go to the Americans, British, and Australians to get the true cost. Our supposedly accountable Harper government would not release how they got that 16 Billion dollar figure.
Another unprecedented occurrence from this Harper Government was that one of his ministers was found to have mislead and lied to parliamentarians both in the House and in committee of inquirer. She changed legal documents by inserting the word "NOT" in the middle of a sentence and when they questioned her about it she said she never did it then later said she ordered a staffer to do it. If that wasn't enough four high ranking members of the Conservative party who worked on the 2004 election were being investigated for election fraud, two of these for are now Senators that Stephen Harper appointed. Speaking of appointing senators, Stephen Harper had always campaigned on cleaning up the senate and that he would never appoint any senators, in reality he turned out to be the Prime Minister to appoint the most Senators. There's also the fact that as soon as was originally elected on the pretense that he would clean up Ottawa, he in fact has made it far worse. When he first became Prime Minister the first thing he did was cancel pretty much every one of the Liberal programs only to re-release them a year later as Conservative policies. I think the most iterating thing he did, and probably the main reason I started being interested in all the politics stuff, is because in his first year he went to the other word nations and said that he would not honor Canada's legal commitment to the Kyoto agreement, and since then he has appointed four environment ministers in under five years and has done absolutely NOTHING on the environment except obstruct the whole world debates and agreement process. Canada is now seen on the world scene as one of the worst components of the global warming epidemic.

Election Time

Well here we are at another federal election and not a moment too soon. I will start off with how we got here. First of all the Harper Conservatives where found to be in contempt of parliament, the only government in the history to do that here in Canada. Second Harpers key right hand man and chief advisor for over four years, is under investigation by the R.C.M.P. at the request of the Prime Ministers office. If that's not weird enough they also revealed that he had been jailed a few years ago for fraud and even Weirder he is a man of sixty one and he has a twenty two year old fiancee. I'm sorry but that just says way too much about the type of men making deals behind closed doors about our future here in Canada. There is also the Investigation of fraud from the Bev Oda affair, she changed a legal document and then mislead the house of representatives as to who did the forgery and when. This whole mess reminds me of the incident a few years ago when one of Harpers top ministers left confidential and secret documents at his ex-girlfriends house, the same ex-girlfriend who had ties to the hells angels motorcycle gang. Or when another one of his former top ministers was pulled over by the R.C.M.P. and arrested for impaired driving, and excessive speeding, and was found to be in possession of a substantial amount of cocaine. What was interesting about that case is that he was no longer a member of parliament because he lost in his seat in the most recent election, so what did Harper do, he fired his wife who was a Conservative cabinet minister and he kicked her out of the Conservative party. Still til this day Heleana Gorgis has had no explanation as to why she was kicked out, but everyone knows its because of her husbands screw up, as if she had any control over him and all but the speeding charges were drooped.
No, I guy could sit here and write all day about the numerous screw ups the Harper Conservatives have done in the last five years. Instead I am going to do this over a few different blog entries to make it easier. One thing is for sure, am I ever glad to be going to the polls again, this time I hope we have a fair and impartial media, the last election C.T.V.'s top political journalist and commentator was sabotaging the Liberal campaign and right after the election Harper made him a senator (which is like winning a millionaire for life lottery). Almost half of Canadians turn to C.T.V. for their news and they trust that they will hear the truth, unfortunately that was not the case in the last election. Here's to hoping for a reliable and truthful media coverage from our three news channels C.B.C., C.T.V., and Global News. Anyways that was post number one, and I'm going to keep posting until I finish my rant.